The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) had defined a protocol for the evolution of the North American 9-1-1 system, and is addressing the challenge with a system design called “Next Generation 9-1-1” or NG9-1-1 is the evolution of Enhanced 9-1-1 to an all-IP-based emergency communications system. This technical specification, commonly referred to as i3, is the first version of the NG9-1-1 system design to accommodate an increasing volume and diversity of information that can be made available to assist emergency services.
The i3 protocol references several types of originating networks that could be used to deliver calls to an public safety access point (PSAP) Emergency services Internet Protocol Network, including legacy circuit-switched networks (wireline or wireless). Networks that are not IP based that are coupled to the PSAP must undergo mediation via a gateway to convert the incoming signaling to session initiated protocol (SIP). In addition, functionality must be applied to legacy emergency calls to acquire location information and use the information obtained in call setup signaling to route a call to the public safety answering point. Mapping information has been traditional utilized to enable an operator to identify a location of a call once it has been assigned to the position. However traditional call assignment algorithms can be inefficient when an incident occurs that generate clusters of calls all related to the same event as emergency calls that are not related to the incident may not be responded to in a timely matter.
Accordingly, systems and methods that enable improved emergency call management remains highly desirable.